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# Being friends with the librarian in the Bibliothèque National
- URL: https://www.lorcandempsey.net/being-friends-with-the-librarian-in-the-bibliotheque-national/
- Published: 2009-12-29T00:06:51.000Z
- Updated: 2024-01-15T07:39:31.000Z
- Author: Lorcan Dempsey
- Tags: Books, Research ∕ Learning

\[I bring back this entry prompted by the [selection](https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=409554&ref=lorcandempsey.net) of [The Arcades Project](https://worldcat.org/oclc/41176710?ref=lorcandempsey.net) in the series of canonical works in the *Times Higher Education Supplement*. It was originally published on July 13 2007.\]

There is a passage in a letter from [Walter Benjamin](https://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n80-36695?ref=lorcandempsey.net) to [Theodor Adorno](https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80-2956?ref=lorcandempsey.net) where he suggests removing a reference to [Georges Bataille](https://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n50-25778?ref=lorcandempsey.net) from a document. Bataille, in addition to his other accomplishments, was a librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Benjamin writes:

> And in this way my own relationship with Georges Bataille will not be adversely affected either, something I would like to maintain, both because of his assistance at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and because of my plans for naturalization. – The fragment would not escape his attention since the Institute journal is openly displayed in the reading room where he often works; and he is hardly the type of person to react serenely to its contents. // [*Theodor W Adorno and Walter Benjamin. The complete correspondence, 1928-1940*](https://worldcat.org/oclc/40820873?ref=lorcandempsey.net). p. 276

I was reminded of this passage as I read Jeremy Harding’s [discussion in the current *London Review of Books*](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n14/hard01%5F.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net) of Walter Benjamin’s ‘last day’ before his death in 1940 while trying to flee to the US.  
Benjamin had left various papers, including the manuscript of his [Arcades Project](https://worldcat.org/oclc/41176710?ref=lorcandempsey.net), with Bataille for safe-keeping. Bataille hid them in the library. The Arcades Project is a massive unfinished work, a weaving of quotations and Benjamin’s own text.

So the library comes in at three levels. At one, it is important for the scholar to keep in with the librarian 😉 At a second, the librarian receives a manuscript on the eve of flight and keeps it safely in the library from where it is retrieved and published. At a third, is it possible to imagine a book which rests so much on quotations without the libraries which preserve the scholarly and cultural record the quotations point to and make it available to readers?

Related entries:

- [Aura again: habent sua fata libelli](https://blog.oclc.org/lorcand/archives/000627.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)
- [Quotes about order and disorder](https://blog.oclc.org/lorcand/archives/000625.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)
- [Collecting books](https://blog.oclc.org/lorcand/archives/000433.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)
- [Aura and digitization](https://blog.oclc.org/lorcand/archives/000623.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)
- [Two buildings](https://blog.oclc.org/lorcand/archives/001219.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net)

**Note:** Originally published July 13 2007\. *WC Identities* URLs updated to current versions.